


made amends, in the general sense (but the devil's in the details)

by ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat



Series: Wash Away the Rain (Winter Soldier AU) [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (mild), Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Janus is the Winter Soldier, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence, Remus discusses the merits of less-than-typical parts of an animal, Swearing, Team Let Virgil Say Fuck, The Duke is also the Winter Soldier, The power of friendship, being used for food purposes, eventually, janus views himself separate from deceit, same person different mindset, the Duke being the Duke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26860495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat/pseuds/ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat
Summary: Janus had never felt more trapped than he did in that moment, crumpled to the floor with his back against the hallway wall, and Virgil standing over him with a murderous look in his eyes.There were others nearby; but it was Virgil who had dropped him with two well-aimed blows and immediately kicked away Janus’ only method of self-defense, the small kitchen knife he’d managed to procure. Pain washed over him in waves, and his wounded side felt like it had been lit on fire.“Look at me,” Virgil hissed. His voice was colder than ice, and Janus flinched. Then, slowly, he looked up. Virgil’s voice lowered dangerously. “If you so much as lay a hand on any of my friends, I will end you.”Janus believed him.(or: Janus has the truth pried out of him forcefully, with a metaphorical crowbar, and it goes so much better than anyone could have expected. Meanwhile, the Duke misses his best friend.)
Series: Wash Away the Rain (Winter Soldier AU) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929958
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	made amends, in the general sense (but the devil's in the details)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! This is a direct continuation of parts 1 and 2, so please read those first. 
> 
> Please check the tags. This story involves discussion of missing/untrustworthy memories, implied torture and brainwashing, and just general Dealing With Trauma stuff. Feel free to ask for more details if a particular tag worries you. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It was eight in the morning. Which, objectively, wasn’t _that_ early. It was early for Virgil, though, even on a good day.

And today was not a good day. 

Well, if he was being totally honest, whether today was a good day or a bad day depended almost entirely on the conversation he was about to have when all his roommates eventually joined him in the kitchen. Because he was going to have to tell them about Janus.

The coffee in his mug sloshed a bit, and he realized his hands were shaking. So he set the mug down on the table and focused on his breathing. 

He really didn’t want to tell them about Janus.

In most other circumstances that came to mind, he’d probably be excited- or at least not terrified- to tell them about Janus. But in those circumstances, the reunion did not include Janus bleeding out on the bathroom floor at three in the morning. In fact, for once, what had actually happened was _worse_ than any one of the worst-case scenarios Virgil’s anxiety-riddled brain had come up with, and Virgil, frankly, had no idea how to react to that.

The sound of footsteps interrupted his spiraling thoughts. Virgil turned to see Patton standing at the entrance to the kitchen. His hair was mussed, and he was still wearing his cat onesie pyjamas. Yesterday had been his fourth 12-hour shift in a row, which meant he has collapsed into bed without bothering to eat anything. Patton sleepily settled into the chair next to Virgil, who wordlessly slid an apple and a granola bar over to him.

“Hey, thanks kiddo. You’re up pretty early today.”

“Yeah, I, uh… couldn’t sleep,” Virgil said. It wasn’t completely a lie. 

“Is something bothering you?”

“Um, I guess so,” Virgil picked up his coffee mug again to stop the urge to fidget. It only helped a little. “Do you ever, like… do you ever know you should do something a certain way, or like, there’s an obvious way you should handle a problem, but…” he trailed off and found Patton was looking at him with a gentle, encouraging expression. So he added, “But it just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do?”

“Well, yeah, sometimes,” Patton answered. “But that’s your heart trying to help you out. I don’t think anyone is ever completely, one-hundo percent sure about what they’re supposed to do all the time. And maybe, if the answer seems obvious but your heart just isn’t buying it, well… maybe the answer isn’t actually so obvious.”

Virgil sighed. It wasn’t that it was a bad answer- it was actually a very fair one- it just… well, things were complicated. Still, he managed to produce a small smile for Patton.

“Thanks, Pat.”

Patton grinned at him, and leaned over to ruffle Virgil’s hair (much to Virgil’s dismay) before he stood up and headed for the fridge. Virgil got up and followed.

Patton was frying some potatoes, and Virgil had just rescued a second batch of bacon before it could reach the same blackened, charred fate as the first, when Roman joined them in the kitchen. 

“A wondrous morning, my friends! Did Virgil burn the bacon again?”

“What do you mean ‘again’?” Virgil sniped at the same time Patton exclaimed, “Hi Roman!”

Roman parked himself at the kitchen table and dropped his stack of papers on it with a ‘thump’. He always looked completely put-together, even in the mornings, with his shoulder-length hair tied up in a half bun, and his cozy-yet-stylish red sweater and designer jeans. Virgil teased him constantly for buying expensive pants when he was in a wheelchair most of the time, but it was only teasing. Roman liked to look good, so he did. 

“Would you believe the school cut my budget _again_? How do they expect me to put on a perfect show with a shoestring costume budget?”

“It’s high school theatre, Roman, you weren’t gonna get a perfect show no matter what,” Virgil pointed out. Roman’s glare didn’t soften until Virgil put a plate of bacon in front of him as an apology.

“It’s my first year there,” Roman said. “I need everything to be perfect. Besides, what do _you_ know about high school theatre, Mr. Emo Nightmare?” 

“Hey, there are plenty of emo theatre kids. Probably. Eat your bacon.”

Virgil hurried back to the stove before Roman could retort. Between himself and Patton, they managed to have four omelettes made by the time Logan, sleepy-eyed and only mostly conscious, made it to the kitchen to crumple into the chair next to Roman. Roman grinned at him.

“Rough night, Specs?”

Logan groaned in response and rubbed at his eyes beneath his thick glasses. Virgil set an omelette in front of him.

“That’s a yes,” Virgil mused. Logan had a bad habit of working late into the night, as did Virgil. Frankly, it was very lucky he hadn’t heard Janus at the door last night. Patton joined them at the table with the rest of the food and a fresh cup of coffee, which Logan accepted gratefully.

They dissolved into easy banter over breakfast. It had taken a lot of work over the years to reach this level of comfort and familiarity- Virgil wasn’t the only one who’d seen some shit in his life, and they all had their own issues- but now that they had it, it was nice. 

That wasn’t to say they didn’t have their disagreements. Virgil was pretty sure he was about to start one right now. 

“So, uh…” he started. Logan and Roman paused in their collection of the dirty dishes, and Patton looked at him curiously. Virgil cleared his throat. “I… I had a friend drop by last night.”

Smooth. Real smooth.

Patton seemed to brighten up. “Oh, really? Why didn’t we get to meet them?”

“Um, well. He’s still here-”

“Ooo, one of _those_ friends?” Roman shot him a wide, knowing grin. “You know you’re supposed to make him breakfast in the morning-”

“Gross. Stop. That’s not at all what I meant,” Virgil growled. “No, it’s… it’s really complicated.”

“Is this what’s been bothering you?” Patton asked softly. Virgil sighed.

“Uh, yeah, it… it is. It’s…” 

“You can tell us, Virgil,” Logan said. 

“I don’t really know the whole story, I haven’t asked him. So, like, this is gonna sound real sketch. But, he came to the door at, like. Three A.M., and, well… he was hurt pretty bad.”

The others looked varying degrees of confused and concerned, but Patton looked downright alarmed.

“Oh gosh, how bad? Do you want me to take a look at him?”

“Maybe later, Pat. He’s, uh… he gets weird around new people. Or he did when I knew him.”

“When you knew him?” Roman asked at the same time Logan said, “He should probably be at a hospital.” Roman turned to give Logan an incredulous look.

“Not everyone can afford a big hospital bill, especially without health insurance.” It was the voice of experience, and none of them could argue, not even Logan. Instead, he just nodded, and muttered, “This country is broken.”

“I agree with you, Lo, I really do. And I’ll be the first to admit this whole thing is sketchy as hell, and you don’t even know the half of it.” Virgil paused. Even he didn’t know the half of it. How _had_ Janus known where he lived? 

“While I agree choosing a friend’s house over the emergency room is not the best course of action, with Roman’s contribution in mind, I would also argue it is not the most illogical decision he could have made depending on the circumstances. We do have a licensed nurse practitioner in the household, after all.” Logan said. “That does not necessarily mean there is anything, as you say, ‘sketchy’ about the situation.”

“Well, here’s the real kicker to all of this. This friend? It’s, uh… it’s Janus.”

He was met with a few moments of confused silence. It was Patton who broke it.

“Janus? Like, Janus-from-the-army Janus?”

“That’s the one.”

“The Janus who disappeared ten years ago?” Roman clarified further. Virgil responded with finger guns, which he instantly regretted. It very much failed to lighten the mood.

“Let me get this straight-”

“Good luck with that!” Roman teased. Logan ignored him.

“Your childhood friend, who you thought was dead after he disappeared when you were still in the army, came to our house at three in the morning, badly injured and refusing to go to the hospital?”

“Well-”

“Oh, and he’s still in the house while we are having this discussion?”

“I mean, yeah. Yeah, that’s almost everything.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed, but it was Patton who prompted, gently, “ _Almost_ everything?”

“Well, there was… one other. Weird thing. A couple weeks ago, he sort of… came into the lab.”

“He _what_?” Logan snapped. Virgil flinched.

“Friday before last, when it was just me there,” he said. “He came in, but then just… booked it.” At Logan’s look of confusion, he amended, “He left. Quickly.”

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“I wasn’t positive it was him. He looked so different. I… I convinced myself it was just a student who got lost or something, and I was just imagining things.”

He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder, and he glanced over to see Roman had moved close enough to touch him.

“It can be confusing, when someone’s been gone for so long,” he said. Virgil managed a small, grateful smile in response. 

Logan, however, only seemed more annoyed.

“Virgil, I think you made a very poor decision by allowing him into our home. I do not believe it is a coincidence he appeared in our lab, and shortly thereafter came to you here. And if he is that badly injured, there is certainly some reason for it-”

“I have no idea what happened to him,” Virgil snapped. All of the tension, frustration, and anxiety over the whole situation rose to the surface, and his voice reached a volume he had not intended. “But something fucked him up, and I don’t think just physically. The hell was I supposed to do, throw him back out onto the street?”

“Language, kiddo,” Patton interjected. “And I don’t think that’s what Logan meant-”

“Certainly not. But I do not believe it is wise to have a relative stranger in our home without knowing what kind of trouble he is in,” Logan said. It was clear he was doing his best to keep his tone even. “To do so may invite a host of unexpected problems-”

“He’s not a stranger,” Virgil insisted. “He’s… well, he _was_ my best friend. A long time ago-” he added, when Logan raised an eyebrow. “But _still_.”

“I have to agree with Negative Nancy, and you know I hate doing that,” Roman chimed in. “A friend is a friend, after all.”

“A redundant statement, but nevertheless I will concede to its validity. Were it any one of you in need of aid, I would most certainly provide it despite any situational trepidations.” 

Roman leaned over to Virgil and stage-whispered, “I think he’s trying to say he loves us.”

Virgil barely managed to suppress a startled laugh, while Patton just looked ecstatic. He practically launched himself out of his chair to bury Logan in a bear hug.

“Aw, and we love you too!” 

“Patton, this… this is truly unnecessary.” 

While Logan attempted to extract himself from Patton’s over-enthusiastic embrace, Virgil looked over to Roman.

“You, uh… you really think I did the right thing?”

“Of course! An old friend, come to you in their hour of greatest need? You have acted valiantly, and he should feel honored to call you a friend.”

“I dunno about _that_ , but. Thanks.”

Roman smiled. A real smile, not one of his “actor masks” that even now could still sometimes fool Virgil. Virgil answered with a small smile of his own.

“I’m gonna go check on him. Make sure I don’t have a dead body in my bed, y’know?”

Virgil left before Roman’s indignant sputtering could become actual words.

\- - - 

“It’s too risky to allow this. We need to extract the asset immediately.”

Another shuriken embedded itself into the wall, but nobody flinched anymore. Idly, the Duke wondered how close he could get one to where the whitecoats were all huddled together like sheep before they made him stop. He took up another of the thin metal stars and adjusted his aim exactly nine and a half inches to the left.

“We still don’t understand _why_ the malfunction occurred. If we allow Deceit to continue acting on his own, perhaps we can learn more about why he was able to do so in the first place.”

The shuriken struck the wall level with one of the whitecoat’s throats, just offset three feet to the right. She cast a nervous glance toward the Duke, but said nothing.

Boring. The whitecoats were never any fun. Too secure in their knowledge that he couldn’t hurt them even if he wanted to. He picked up the last shuriken and tapped it against the metal table he sat perched atop.

The Duke wasn’t stupid. He knew why he was here in the lab instead of his room. The whitecoats were afraid he’d start trying to bash out his own brains like Dee had done if they left him alone. Which honestly was pretty insulting. He only liked bashing out other people’s brains, not his own. He liked his cerebrospinal fluid right where it was, thanks. 

“If he recovers his memories, it will become incredibly difficult to condition him a second time.”

“If. It’s more likely he won’t-”

“And it’s entirely possible he _will_ remember, and it will stress his mind beyond repair.”

“In that case, we were going to lose an asset anyway, at least we can learn-”

The shuriken hit the wall less than a foot away from the speaker, and they all jumped. 

“Did you know calf brain is a French delicacy?” the Duke offered, delighted to have all eyes on him. “I don’t know if you boil it or fry it. Or blend it up into a sauce, maybe?”

“Can we get him out of here?” one of the whitecoats grumbled to the others. The Duke still was reminded of a flock of sheep when he looked at them. Or maybe chickens. Nervous chickens in their coop, staring out at the fox that couldn’t get in and eat them all up. Yet.

“It’s best if we continue to observe this one, make sure we don’t overlook any indications of a similar malfunction.”

“Lamb brain is a thing, too,” the Duke went on, since they were all still paying attention to him. “At least they’re up front about what they’re serving you. In the U.S. they just grind the whole animal together and stuff it in a sausage.”

“Ignore him. As I was saying-”

They were starting to turn away from him again. He didn’t like that. Louder, he continued, “Do you ever wonder how many human fingers end up in the mix?”

One of the whitecoats turned a shade of pale green. The Duke grinned at him. Another set down her clipboard with a sigh, and walked across the room to where he sat. 

“Ok, I think you’re fine. You can go back to your room now.” 

The Duke hopped off the table and skipped out of the lab. He always enjoyed grossing out the whitecoats. He kept a tally of how many times he’d managed it. Dee would be proud, he couldn’t wait to tell him-

His steps halted abruptly as he remembered: Dee was gone. 

\- - -

Janus had never felt more trapped than he did in that moment, crumpled to the floor with his back against the hallway wall, and Virgil standing over him with a murderous look in his eyes.

There were others nearby; but it was Virgil who had dropped him with two well-aimed blows and immediately kicked away Janus’ only method of self-defense, the small kitchen knife he’d managed to procure. Pain washed over him in waves, and his wounded side felt like it had been lit on fire. 

“Look at me,” Virgil hissed. His voice was colder than ice, and Janus flinched. Then, slowly, he looked up. Virgil’s voice lowered dangerously. “If you so much as lay a hand on any of my friends, I will end you.”

Janus believed him.

“Virgil?” Patton’s voice startled Janus, and it seemed to startle Virgil, too. Gradually, Janus became aware of where the others were- the man Deceit had recognized as a target stood near one end of the hallway, while Patton and the man who could have been the Duke except for his soft eyes and long hair had stayed safely at the opposite end of the hall. They were all looking to Virgil, but Patton’s gaze kept darting nervously toward Janus, then away again. Janus let his own eyes drop toward the ground.

Virgil took a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly. _Four, seven, eight_ , a piece of Janus' mind supplied. Then, Virgil took two steps back so he was no longer standing directly over Janus anymore. He was still close enough that he could drop Janus again if he tried to stand up, but Janus found that the space allowed him to breathe once more.

“Alright,” Virgil said. His voice had grown unnervingly calm. “Janus. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops right now.”

“Virgil-” Patton started, but a hasty whisper of “He had a _knife_ , Patton,” from the man who wasn’t the Duke cut him off. All eyes fell to Janus.

“...There… isn’t one,” Janus admitted when no lie came to his tongue. “I was sent to kill you.” A pause, then Janus glanced down the hall to where the man in the black polo and blue tie stood watching the scene with confusion. “And you.”

“I’m sorry, what!?” exclaimed the man who wasn’t the Duke. “You came to kill Virgil? And Logan? What are you, some kind of secret agent assassin-spy?” 

Janus didn’t reply. He looked down at the ground again. He could feel Virgil’s eyes on him.

“...You are. Aren’t you?” Virgil said quietly. “Project Imagination. That’s what it was. Wasn’t it?” 

Janus nodded. He heard movement to his right, and he glanced over to see Deceit’s second target- Logan?- had taken a few steps closer. 

“Why?” the young man asked. He adjusted his glasses, then clarified, “Why were Virgil and I targeted?” 

“I don’t know,” Janus answered honestly. “Something regarding your research. They did not consider it necessary that I knew the details.”

“Wait a minute. Two weeks ago, I saw you in the lab. You were there to kill me?” Janus nodded. Virgil let out a sharp exhale. “Shit. Well why didn’t you… y’know?” He just sort of gestured vaguely, but Janus understood.

“I… I knew you. Know you. That overrode my programming.” 

“The hell do you mean ‘programming’?”

“There are… certain trainings and conditionings the assets are put through to ensure optimal performance-”

“They fucking tortured you?” Virgil snarled. This time, at least, the anger did not seem directed at him.

“I didn’t say that-”

“You didn’t have to. They tortured you until they could make you into their own obedient little soldier, didn’t they?”

When Janus didn’t answer, Virgil’s eyes softened. 

“Janus,” he said. “Did you come here last night because you just got away from them?”

Janus tried to answer this time, but his throat tightened around his words, and he could only nod. Again, Virgil let out another sharp exhale. 

“Alright. I have a lot of questions, but those can wait until… until we’ve all calmed down a bit. But. I need to ask. You… how much do you… you know who I am, right?”

Janus kept his gaze fixed on the light beige tile floor, though he could feel Virgil seeking his eye. He considered lying, insisting that _of course he knew Virgil, how could he ever forget him?_ But when he opened his mouth and forced his voice to work, only one word clawed its way past the tightness of his throat.

“No.”

\- - -

Patton wanted to tend to Janus’ injuries, which Virgil managed to convince the latter to allow with the reasoning “you kinda tried to kill two of his roommates, so it’s really the least you can do to make it up to him.” That was how, following the tense conversation in the hallway, the three of them now found themselves in the livingroom. Logan had left to drive Roman to work, which left Patton and Janus seated on the floor, and Virgil perched on the back of the couch watching them like a hawk. 

He wasn’t entirely convinced Janus wasn’t going to freak out again, but Janus seemed subdued and, in a way, entirely resigned to doing whatever was asked of him.

Virgil missed the Janus that never did anything he didn’t want to do, who responded to orders and demands with sharp words and calculated retaliations. He missed the Janus who had defended him vehemently against every transphobe in the army, who had fought to make sure Virgil never had to face discrimination for something he couldn’t control. 

He missed the Janus that had been his best friend. And if he thought too long about it, he could feel a white hot anger building in his chest, anger at the people that had done this. 

(And maybe, just maybe, a bit of anger at himself, for not being there for Janus after half a lifetime of Janus being there for him.) 

Earlier, while Patton had been rummaging around in the massive hoard of professional-grade medical supplies he kept in his room, Virgil had asked Janus if there had been other targets besides him and Logan. His suspicions were confirmed when Janus rattled off accurate descriptions of both Remy and Emile. Virgil would have been a little proud to learn his team’s work was important enough that someone decided to send a brainwashed assassin to kill them all if it weren’t for the fact that _someone had literally sent a brainwashed assassin to kill them all, what the hell?_ Even without the complication of said brainwashed assassin being his best friend who disappeared ten years ago, it was sort of a lot to take in.

So rather than dwell on it for too long, Virgil texted Remy and Emile to let them know Patton had brought a bad case of the flu home from the hospital and they’d have to cancel game night this week. 

Now to figure out how to deal with. Well. _This_.

“ _This_ ” being Janus, of course, who had let Patton guide him to sit on the towels that had been laid out on the livingroom floor, and was now letting Patton peel the bandages away from his wounds with almost no indication that he felt any pain. 

“You really don’t remember anything?” Virgil blurted out. He hadn’t meant to phrase it quite like that, but… Janus, at least, didn’t seem to care. 

“There’s fragments,” Janus admitted slowly. “But when I reach for them, they’re either buried too deep, or too mixed into other things for me to disentangle them.”

Patton looked downright devastated by that. 

“Who would do something like this?” he asked. “That’s horrible!” 

Janus didn’t answer, so Virgil sighed.

“Bad people, Pat. Really bad people, with too much money and too many resources.”

“But- to a human being? It’s just wrong on so many levels.”

“I agree with you there, trust me,” Virgil paused, watching as Patton cleaned the open gashes across Janus’ torso. Dark bruises had formed since the night before, splotchy and black against Janus’ pale, scar-riddled skin. A thought hit him. “Last night, you said someone did this with a morningstar. I thought that was a joke, but..?” 

“The Duke is rather fond of… archaic weaponry, for some reason,” Janus sighed, but in the way people do when they actually find something amusing and don’t want to admit it.

“The Duke?” Virgil echoed. 

“Another asset.”

“Like you?”

“...Like me.” 

Patton somehow managed to look even more distraught. “There are more people?”

“The Duke and I are the only active assets at this branch. If there are others, they are kept elsewhere.”

“Were.” Virgil corrected. Janus looked at him and did not seem to understand, so Virgil added, “You _were_ an ‘active asset’, as you put it. But you’re not theirs anymore, Janus. You’re not going back there, no way.”

Nobody seemed willing to break the ensuing silence, so it gathered heavily around them. Patton worked with an efficiency that only comes from years working in the emergency room, and Janus stayed quiet and unmoving through it all. 

At least until Patton finished tending to his side and moved on to inspect the cuts on his face. He reached out, and immediately, Janus jerked away, his eyes alight with barely-contained terror. Virgil tensed, and Patton pulled back, startled. 

“Woah, hey, it’s alright buddy! I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise!” His voice took on the tone he reserved primarily to comfort the kids who were afraid of the big scary needles doctors and nurses often had to prod them with. “I just want to take a look at your eye, that’s all. You can just look at me and I won’t touch, how about that?” 

For a moment, it seemed like Janus hadn’t heard a word; he just gave Patton the same glassy-eyed stare he’d given Virgil the night before. But he came back to himself quickly. He took a deep, shuttering breath, then nodded. He held very still while Patton shined a light into his eyes, then inspected his wounds as best he could without touching. Through it, Janus clenched his fists so tightly, his knuckles turned white. It made Virgil’s heart clench in turn. 

“Well, kiddo,” Patton said. He scooted back a bit to give Janus space, which seemed to help. “Everything seems ok, but that left eye of yours has me a bit worried. Can you see from it at all?”

Janus shook his head. Patton furrowed his brows, seeming troubled. 

“I mean, there’s only so much I can do here, but really it would be best to get you to the hospital for some tests. You could have some kind of head trauma.”

“I think the head trauma came much earlier,” Janus said drily. His voice shook a little bit, but it was still the most Janus-like thing Virgil had heard all day. 

“Yeah, I’d say you’d already lost your marbles before I even met you,” he said, hoping to hear more of that familiar tone of voice.

“You’re the one who tripped and fell into a river while _birdwatching_ ,” Janus shot back- then, he looked surprised with himself. Virgil grinned at him.

“You do remember!”

“...I remember a river. A river I had to jump into because you couldn’t swim.” A pause. Then, in an almost accusatory tone, he added, “And you followed me home?”

“That about sums it up,” Virgil confirmed. Then, he noticed Patton staring at him with an expression of utter delight, which was never a good thing. “What?”

“You like birdwatching!?”

Virgil groaned. “I was _twelve_.”

Patton burst into a grin. “We are SO all going birdwatching!” 

While he couldn’t be sure, Virgil thought he saw a faint, amused smirk cross Janus’ face, though only for a moment. Virgil let out the most dramatic sigh he could muster.

“You both are so mean. I think the only way I’ll ever recover is if we watch a movie and I get to pick it.”

“Ok!” Patton exclaimed. “Just let me get all this cleaned up, alright?”

While Patton cleaned up, Virgil helped Janus move stiffly to the couch and got him settled into something at least vaguely comfortable. Then, he queued up Nightmare Before Christmas.

Janus was asleep partway through ‘Jack’s Lament.’

\- - -

For the first moment, Janus couldn’t remember where he was. He remembered a singing skeleton. Then he remembered being woken up, and being talked into trying to eat a small bit of soup. It hadn’t sat well, so he hadn’t eaten anything more. Then, he had gone back to sleep, still on the couch, but this time with a blanket and pillow donated from Patton’s apparently overzealous collection. Now he was awake again, but the livingroom around him was dark and quiet.

For the second moment, Janus was unsure what had woken him. He had been jerked sharply to consciousness by a bone-deep sense of dread, the kind that wrapped its icy tendrils around his spine and pushed his heart into his throat. The kind that screamed ‘danger!’. His whole body stilled- even the blood in his veins seemed to pause in that moment- as his mind sought out anything to identify the threat. 

And it was in the third moment that Janus locked eyes with the dark figure that sat perched atop the back of the couch, staring down at him.

\- - -

The Duke squinted against the harsh sunlight that streamed in through the open door. Every cell in his body screamed at him to turn back. Literally, he could hear the screaming. It was like a dull roar in the back of his head, billions and billions of tiny voices, all screaming in unison. But there was one voice in his mind that was louder than all those voices combined: his own. 

And that voice said it was up to him to find Dee. No one else was gonna do it, ‘cause everyone had, like, stopped caring or something. But Dee was out there somewhere, lost and hurt and alone, and it was up to him to find Dee and bring him home. 

The Duke stepped across the threshold and let the sunlight swallow him up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr @threecrowsinatrenchcoat, please come and yell with me/at me.
> 
> I'm expecting to write two more parts, for a total of five parts in this main story. Things are starting to move forward, and boy have I got some plans. I don't know when the next part will be out, but it's coming.
> 
> Not much to add to this one. I appreciate your comments so much, and please feel free to share any ideas/theories/thoughts you may have, I literally live for those comments. 
> 
> Title is from "Devil in the Details" by Bright Eyes, from Janus' playlist.


End file.
